My Friend Marina

A measuring system that can accurately describe how much Marina Nacamuli means to me does not exist.

She is my dearest and oldest friend. When we meet someone new in each others lives, she knows I love to tell them that she has been my friend since we were four years old. I love to say that because it's how I let everyone know that she is part of who I am.

Marina likes to play jealous. It is one of her defining traits. She is possessive of her friends, because she loves them very deeply. But, and I know that on some level she knows this, she does not have any real motive to be jealous with me. No one will ever mean as much to me as she does. No one can compete with her. She is one of the most important people in my life.

When I got my heart broken once, I collapsed onto the streets of Midtown, started to cry uncontrollably, and I called Marina. I don't know where she was or what she was doing, but she was by my side within fifteen minutes. That is the kind of person Marina is. She will drop everything and go anywhere to be by your side when you need her. Her love for her friends is palpable.

Marina often asks me to edit something, or write something, or be part of a project. She created a fan page for me on facebook, she comes to watch all of my plays, and if I ever need help with any creative project, she's right there for me. She roots for me, and she believes in me. This is something that touches me very much and I am infinitely grateful for.

We grew up together, we created worlds together, we tried to learn French together, we started liking boys together, we've traveled together, and we've made New York our homes together. Life has kept her near me, and she is constant in my story.

She knows everything there is to know about me. Our friendship is extremely special, but I often take it for granted. When I have moments like today, where I celebrate her, I am present to what a rare gift such a friendship as this is, and I am moved to tears.

Today is her birthday, and she is in Europe. I can not physically be with her, I can not even give her a gift, but I want her to know that she is everything to me. I love her so much that words, which always come so easily to me, evaporate as I try to do justice to how much she means to me. I state the facts of our friendship in hopes that they speak for themselves: it is her 26th birthday and it is the 22nd anniversary of our friendship. It is with absolute certainty that I say that though those are a significant amount of years, they are just a fraction of what we'll look back on at the end of our lives.

Ma, I do not know who I would be without you, and I do not ever want to find out. 

A teacher of mine once asked me, "Do you have a best friend?" And I answered, "Yes, I have always had one, and I always will. My friend Marina."

Minha querida abu, te amo muito.

Happy Birthday. 

The Betrayal

All I could think of, as I sat on that train to Boston on a September evening, was what an idiot I was. What a horrible friend, what a terrible woman, what an ugly, unworthy, and selfish being I was. I had done something I knew would hurt one of my dearest friends, and now I was going to Boston to confess my dirty deed.

Jenna and I had been friends for many, many years. We shared a love for theatre and the arts. She was kind, sensitive, sweet, and incredibly generous. I held her dearly in my heart, and thought, frequently, that we would be friends forever. We did many plays in school together, and when we went away to colleges that were really far away from each other, we stayed in touch. She was one of the very few friends I had in my life whom I considered a soul sister.

But these were things I took for granted. Not realizing their rarity and weight, I threw them away. I was on that train to Boston to tell Jenna, to her face, that I had slept with her ex-boyfriend, a man she had loved for many years. It was a secret I couldn't keep from her. I didn't know how to continue being her friend after having done that to her. I knew, as I sat there on the train, that I was about to hurt my friend irreparably.

When I arrived to Boston, I wanted to sit down with her somewhere quiet and tell her right away. But she said she had a night class and she absolutely had to go. Even though I was feeling like death, I told her I'd wait for her. I sat on a chair outside the classroom while she was in class, staring at the wall; the weight of my confession sitting on my chest, getting heavier with every minute. When she got out of class, we went to her dorm. She showered, talked to some people, took care of some things around the house, while I waited on her bed. Now, in retrospect, I am able to realize that she already knew I was about to tell her something devastating, and she was stalling for time. Maybe she wanted to delay that painful moment and protect herself, or maybe she was stretching out the minutes before our friendship ended. I don't know.

Finally, she came into her room and closed the door. We sat on her floor. I couldn't look her in the eyes. The words I had carefully chosen in the hours I'd spent preparing my confession escaped me. Any prepared speech seemed perfectly ridiculous. Looking down at her wooden floor, I said, "I did something I don't know how to explain. It involves your ex-boyfriend." She asked me to look at her. Her eyes, which had always smiled at me, were cold. Then she said, "You had sex with him?" I nodded my head yes, once again looking away from her. "Then the word you're looking for is fucking. That's how you can explain it." I sat there, not knowing what to do, wishing I could evaporate and take my shame with me. There were things I could have said, there were explanations for my actions, there where complicated details that justified my behavior, in part. But there was no point. The essence, no matter what I said or how I phrased it, was that I had betrayed her.

Not once did she cry or yell at me. She looked at me at one point, though, after a long silence, and said quietly, "I knew you were selfish, egotistical, and self-centered, but I never thought you'd do something like this to me." Her pain was tangible. Again, I looked away. Her words would haunt me for a long, long time.

I slept on the floor of her living room that night, still feverish and ill, grateful that she hadn't kicked me out into the night on my own. In the morning, I went up to her room to say good-bye before I left back for New York. She didn't get up or walk me to the door. There was no hug, no hand-shake, no last look. That was it. I had proved myself unworthy of final good-bye gesture. I knew, as I walked to the train station, that I would never see her again.

I tried, several times, to write to her. I apologized and hoped to mend that broken bridge. But I knew that I had done something unforgivable. I had, in a few moments, lost years of a friendship, and I had no one but myself to blame. I felt I deserved to have lost her. I had done something I knew would hurt someone I loved, for my own selfish reasons. I had no business bugging her to forgive me and I knew it. I had to let her go now, and bear the burden of my guilt. I had brought this loss upon myself, and now I had to learn to live with it.

My chest still tenses up as I think of this story. Although many years have passed, and surely Jenna is living a peaceful life surrounded by people who are worthy of her friendship, I still have to work on forgiving myself. Mostly, I just miss her. The regrets, the embarrassment, and the "if only" thoughts are not as strong as the sad, heaving feeling of having lost someone I cared about. I still see things that I'd like to share with her and am saddened that I can't just pick up the phone and call her. I still miss her advice, her patience, and her smile.

This is one of my mistakes, the one by which I learned who I really am, what I'm capable of doing, and the consequences of my reckless actions. It is a part of me I am ashamed to own up to, but it is, nonetheless, part of what makes me who I am. I have to remember that there are parts of me I am proud of too, and it all makes up a whole- a person capable of both good, selfless actions and hurtful, selfish ones too.

It is easy to embrace our lightness. The challenge comes in accepting our darkness. It is a lesson I am still learning.